Monday, December 12, 2016

Sunday. We were snowed in this morning – a happy thing. Eight inches isn’t much but it was enough for us to celebrate with bacon and eggs for breakfast and a stay by the fireplace. The plows came around by mid-morning but by then we were well into Sabbath rest and listening to a Keller sermon on patience which scratched at a number of weak spots in our life. (Like what a beast I turn into when annoyed by other drivers.)

The snow began yesterday afternoon with temperatures close to zero. We planned to attend a party in the evening. Until we were on our way and freaked out by almost getting mashed into guacamole by another car. Someone spun out right ahead of us and did at least five slow-mo fish tails, before coming to rest facing across the lanes with both rear wheels on the shoulder.

We felt lucky to stop in time and not have anyone rear-end us. Because the party was a good fifteen miles across the city, we decided to heck with this and turned back home. The first real snow of the season and people ought to know how to drive without killing self or others! A good thing we turned home, because there were others in trouble including a nice, new pickup lying on its side in the ditch. Which reminded me of the Dodge Ram ads featuring hunky men driving straight up a snowy mountain.

Winter storms with their danger and beauty fill me with nostalgia and happiness. We have so much to be thankful for: the warmth of home, the splendor of the snow-draped forest behind us, rabbit tracks over the drifts, comfort food and our married friendship. I am unworthy of such bounty, and yet, when do we ever deserve the goodness that makes our hearts glad?

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

I open the silverware drawer and notice little black grains
and wonder who dropped dirt among the forks. Bits of bacon? Wild rice? Not mice
feces again!

The glories of fall with cool temps and blazing trees must
alert rodents it’s time to find a winter home, and with our entire tribe in tow,
why don’t we enter this promising house with a perfect entrance through the
kitchen exhaust fan? Why not? Because I am going to tell people how to stop you!

Mice, I admit, are rather cute with their shiny black eyes
and fuzzy gray faces. No one knew this better than children’s author Beatrix Potter
who wrote mouse stories that could warm the most cold-hearted adult. Who
doesn’t love Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca, the mouse couple who angrily destroy a
doll house because all the food is fake but then return in repentance with a
broom and dustpan to sweep up the damage? If only!!

I’m not afraid of them, like some, or viciously calculating
like others armed with a cookie sheet ready to flatten it the next time it
appears. (Futile remedy, Andene.) Okay, I did have one encounter that made me
scream. But I was in no position to protect myself since it ran under the
bathroom door while I was temporarily indisposed.

If you see one mouse run across your living room and
disappear under the chair, you may be sure there are others. If you find one
dropping in your pantry, you may be sure there are others. If you find a cache
of shredded kleenix behind the shoes in your closet, you may be sure there are
others. If my mother, the queen of proverbs, were here she’d toss you off a
“where there’s one there are a dozen.” I cringe.

When they begin to lick the butter you left on the counter,
(don’t tell me to get a cat; my daughter’s cat has always preferred licking
butter to catching mice.) and leave their little black rice kernels on the
dinner plates, nibbles on the cracker box and holes in the cornmeal sack – it’s
time to declare war.

We have tried various ways of capturing them including live
trapping with the benevolent plan of releasing them some where wonderful like
the wealthy neighborhood next door. But they just seem to prefer slumming at my
house. The old-fashioned bend-the-spring-back-and-hook trap only succeeded in
trapping my fingers as the latch is so touchy. Mice despise this trap, disarm
it with ease and leave with the bait. They may be cheap, but don’t bother.
Poison is bad for two reasons. If a mouse eats it and dies and your cat finds
it thinking what a yummy little snack, she might eat it and die, too. The
second problem with poison, though some deny this, is that upon eating a
shit-load of bait the mouse makes his way back to his nest somewhere in the
bowels of your house and feeling very sick to the stomach curls up and dies.
Then as nature does her work the mouse begins to decompose. The scent of
rotting flesh emerging from such a small creature is alarming. We know from
experience. That dreadful smell emanating from our basement infused the rest of
the house and lasted until the blue bottle flies appeared (you know what was
going on there!) It could make a monk curse. Slowly it dissipates and
disappears after a few weeks. Meanwhile all our frantic searching in cubby
holes and pipes never revealed the dead corpse.

My secret to fighting mice is simple and cheap. Go to any
hardware store or a place like Menards and purchase four or five JAWZ OF DEATH traps. They should cost
more than five dollars apiece. This is the best weapon ever. You load the
little basin under the trigger with peanut butter, pull back the JAW until it
clicks and carefully set it down. Then scatter a few grains of oatmeal. Not
many. You want it to be an appetizer or an amuse-bouche, a little mouth teaser
as the French say, before the mouse tucks into the main course. Then WHOMP – instant
death. Fast, accurate and deadly. This almost humane, don’t you think? And his
last thought will be a pleasant one – the surprise of finding something so
tasty right in his path on the way to the kitchen? Bonus! Disposal is so easy –
no touching dead thing, just hold over trash can and squeeze open and down it
drops. Most of the time you don’t even need to re-bait.

I know. But he IS dead. Don't feel too sorry for him. Not to put too fine a point on it, The CDC says: "Worldwide, rats and mice spread over 35 diseases. These diseases can be spread to humans directly, through handling of rodents, through contact with rodent feces, urine, or saliva, or through rodent bites." Photo Courtesy of Rachel Wilhelm.

With JAWZ in place you can climb down from the safety of
your stool and confidently put away the cast iron skillet you were going to
throw. This is my best advice for autumn. For free. Lucky you.

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

This week a handyman finished repairing holes in the siding
of our house. A woodpecker hammered away until there were three holes large
enough for chickadees to nest in. This is not a joke. They actually did. If you
timed it right you could see a parent returning with little green worms and if
you listened closely you could hear the ecstatic cries of the babies when
dinner arrived. It was an odd thing to see a chickadee perched on the hole’s
edge, its head poking out the side of our house. Whether advisable or not, we
waited until they moved out before the work was done.

We are a little obsessed with bird-watching around here and
learn all kinds of life lessons from them. Not that I take to the woods with
binoculars. No. I’m too fat and lazy for that. We have extremely popular
feeders on our deck so all I need to do is sit at my desk sipping coffee and twist
my neck to watch. I try not to get too distracted by the constant commotion
outside my window, but the other day I was disgusted by something I’d never
seen before – a tiny song sparrow feeding a baby bird about four times her
size. The baby was fluttering its wings as young ones do while the exhausted
parent flew back and forth to the feeder, grabbing seeds and popping them in the
demanding open mouth. Back and forth, over and over. I was witnessing the
perpetrator of a malicious crime. Slavery. A murderer of sorts. An imposter.
Pig. And here was a mother who didn’t even know this was not her own child.

This was a purple finch (little larger species than song sparrows) nest we found on our porch some time ago, but you can see the cowbird egg which is larger and a mottled brown. I removed it returned the nest to the rightful owners.

Male Cowbird

The baby was a young cow bird whose mother had spied the
innocent song sparrow’s nest a month or more ago and stealthily laid her own
fat egg among the tiny sparrow eggs. The cow bird can’t be bothered to hatch
her own eggs and instead sneaks into another bird home and leaves a fake. And
it isn’t like the hatchling joins the rest of the brood thankful to be fed, thankful
to be anywhere at all – it always hatches first – ugly, (okay all baby birds
are ugly, but I’m annoyed here) blind and featherless, and then it commits
fratricide by pushing the other eggs out of the nest to destroy all
competition. You may not approve of this, but my husband set the foster mother
free by dispatching the imposter.

It’s one thing to hear David Attenborough talk about certain
disturbing aspects of bird life, but altogether a different thing to witness it
firsthand.

I love metaphor and this was so flagrant I had to reflect on
it. I don’t know if you’ve ever found yourself far gone down a road you had no
idea would end up severely depleting or even destroying your assets? Or health?
Or family? I once nurtured a multi-level marketing company thinking it could
make me, if not rich, then able to purchase “extras” like Calphalon cookware,
percale sheets and massage therapy. I loved the product and invested a lot of
money trying to make sales only to learn that as the months passed with little
to show for my effort, it became clear I was the worst salesperson on earth. This
was not becoming the nest egg I’d hoped for because I couldn’t bring myself to
tell you how much good this skincare line could be for your flaky, pock-marked
face. But I continued feeding time and money into the maw of the business hoping
it would get better. Gradually, I fell into discouragement and guilt, but for
several years I was afraid to quit. How could I admit such failure to my
husband who had supported this risk? How could I make up the lost dollars?
Finally, I told him how much I hated sales and how sorry I was for the wasted
money and how afraid I was to stop feeding this monster in my life because I’m
not a quitter, but what could I do? Then came one of the most wonderful proofs
of grace in my life. He said – “Stop doing this. Let it go and don’t worry
about it. It’s a valuable thing to try something out to see if it will work and
to find out it doesn’t. You didn’t know this wouldn’t be your thing. So let it
go.” I quit immediately and I’ve never forgotten the love he demonstrated in
walking through that with me.

Epilogue: we’ve seen another batch of song sparrow babies
that are genetic offspring. Definitely. I even imagine I’m hearing happier
songs.

Thursday, August 25, 2016

We’ve always liked the earthiness of wood-fired pottery and
not long ago friends took us to a cool potter’s studio near Amery, Wisconsin,
where Sarah Dudgeon has been throwing and firing pots in an old country
mercantile store that is also her home for about 20 years. There is an
attractive charm to the setting – a creative tumbling of plants and color and
chaos. (see her facebook page Dudgeon Pottery or go to the website) Sarah’s work –much of it with
botanical themes – is gorgeous.

Dudgeon Pottery in an old general store near Amory, WI

Pottery has been an affordable way for us to support artists
as we purchase gifts for others, and, of course, for ourselves. We excuse our
obsession with the the thought that some day, when we die, our children will
have the joy of dividing it among themselves. Uh-huh. The one that caught my
eye that day had leaves and stems of a coppery golden sheen on browns that fade
into a turquoise green background – I liked it even more when I held it in my
hand. Not only for its beauty but for its functionality. It’s not uncommon for
people with RA to have swollen sausage-like fingers. Yes, on certain days, mine
look almost edible. So a handle designed to fit four fingers and a thumb on top
distributes the weight of coffee and mug so there is minimal pain in getting
that caffeine lifted to your mouth. Extremely satisfying.

A load ready to come out of the kiln

It causes great gladness to witness how some people in this fallen
world are able to combine their calling or vocation with what they love to
do even when it is hard work and will never make them rich in money. But as you
look around her site it is clear that in the diversity of color and plants and
textures there is an unmistakable richness and warmth to the life she has created.

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

The Scott County
Fair had a draft horse show last Friday and we watched the six horse hitches
for the mares division. There were ten entries from all over the midwest. At
one point there were 60 horses in the arena - all thundering past the stands
pulling coaches- the announcer liked to call them "Gentle Giants."
When I stood beneath one who was getting all gussied up before the completion -
her mane braided, her tail be-ribboned and her hooves shined - it looked like a
spa for horses. Anyway - I stood beneath one of the mares and her lips rested
on my head. That's how tall they are. The winner of that division was
Percherons from Cheyenne, WY.They are
Percherons. Black beauties whose breed originated in France.

Their
synchronized beauty, their power and grace move me. Sometimes to tears. Silly
me. But there is a theology to them that causes me to wonder. I mean wonder as
in speechless. Amazed. A horse can be controlled with a bit and bridle if you
know how. But there is something wonderful about the one who will come to you
when called without being coerced. That is what God asks of us - to come to
him. To not be like a horse that has no understanding but must be controlled by
bit and bridle or they will not come. (Psalm 32:9)

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For many years we lived in Toad Hall, an old American Gothic Foursquare house named for the mansion in Wind in the Willows although ours wasn’t really a mansion, the kids just thought it was. Now we live in a different home – one more suited to aging with dignity – yes, well, we can hope – The House Between. “Between” because we are living that stage of life between now and what is to come. Sound a little macabre? It’s not. We needed move to a space with main floor accessibility for older people who may not always be able to climb stairs to sleep and eliminate. We love this home in a quiet neighborhood with offices overooking the wooded ravine behind where we feed birds and watch coyotes play leap frog. We love knowing, too, that this is not our final place – there is more healing and goodness in the next life. I’ve kept the name of my blog toadsdrinkcoffee because I don’t know how to migrate to a new one. The name is now even more obscure, but it had to do with living in Toad Hall and my addiction to coffee. However, I did migrate my old publication – Notes From Toad Hall– to the new one Letters from the House Between.